


I Want to Hold You Like You're Mine

by JackEPeace



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Soul Mate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 13:26:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11208999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackEPeace/pseuds/JackEPeace
Summary: As he grows, Leo begins to understand that he's different from the other kids. Different in many ways, true, but in one very noticeable one. The girls in his class look at the names on their wrists and giggle, lost in childish fantasies that involve princes and castles and horses. The boys in his class color over their names with marker, doodling around the letters or hiding them completely in the hopes of denying a future marriage. Leo does none of these things, his skin smooth and soft and bare."It's nothing to worry about, Leo," his ma assures him whenever it's mentioned. "It only means your Soul Mate hasn't been born yet."It's comforting when he's five, six, seven. It slowly becomes less comforting as he grows older, the distance between him and a potential Mate growing larger and more difficult to cross. (obligatory Soul Mate AU)





	I Want to Hold You Like You're Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Every fandom needs a soul mate AU, right?! That's what I tell myself anyway....
> 
> Yes, I am Fraida trash. I'm sorry? It just had to be done...right? 
> 
> Thanks, as always, to Jess for always encouraging me and for the Fraida Sin Squad for being the best enablers ever. 
> 
> Also there are mentions of childhood abuse/bully in reference to Fitz and his relationship with his father. Also slight mentions to Skimmons because...it is me. 
> 
> Titles from the song "Agnes" by Glass Animals (seems appropriate, right?)

He's born without a name on his wrist.

In the hours after he's born, when they're back in the hospital room and it's quiet the nurses have left them alone temporarily, Ellen Fitz unwraps her new baby from the blankets and checks over every inch of his body. She's done this before, of course, checking each finger and toe, smelling his soft skin and downy hair. But it's different this time; she's not marveling at this new person but methodically checking him over, to make sure nothing has been missed.

It's rare, she knows, for the Soul Mate Mark to be somewhere other than the wrist but it happens. It's rare, she knows, for a person to be born without a Soul Mate Mark at all. But it happens.

It's happened to her son, Ellen can see that now. It doesn't necessary mean anything, she knows. The Mark might appear tomorrow, a week from now, a month, a year, when his Soul Mate is born. But still, it makes her unbelievably sad for him.

Ellen lifts her son to her chest, rubbing his back when he stirs and fusses. "Leo," she coos against his soft hair. "Leo." She says his name again, a reminder that this person is here, that he is hers.

The door to the room opens, a reminder that they are actually three and not two. Alistair had been pleased to discover that he was having a son, though she'd won the battle to keep from naming Leo after his father. Seeing him in the delivery room, holding Leo as he cried, had given her the faintest glimmer of hope, the hope that things might be okay, that he might become a different man after all. But she's already seen the hints of his old self creeping back, the disappointment in Alistair's eyes when Leo cried when he held him, that his tiny wrists were bare.

Her own wrist doesn't have Alistair's name on it but the name of the man she'd known before him, the better man, the one who had died one rainy night and left her.

Even still, Ellen finds herself looking toward Alistair. "Do you want to hold him?"

Alistair grunts, hardly an answer, but a no more than anything. She keeps Leo close to her chest, relieved.

* * *

 

As he grows, Leo begins to understand that he's different from the other kids. Different in many ways, true, but in one very noticeable one. The girls in his class look at the names on their wrists and giggle, lost in childish fantasies that involve princes and castles and horses. The boys in his class color over their names with marker, doodling around the letters or hiding them completely in the hopes of denying a future marriage. Leo does none of these things, his skin smooth and soft and bare.

"It's nothing to worry about, Leo," his ma assures him whenever it's mentioned. "It only means your Soul Mate hasn't been born yet."

It's comforting when he's five, six, seven. It slowly becomes less comforting as he grows older, the distance between him and a potential Mate growing larger and more difficult to cross.

When he's nine, a new girl joins his class. Her name is Penelope and she's already beautiful with her straight dark hair and her dark eyes and she's new and nice and doesn't know not the smile at him.

Leo writes her name on his wrist and seeing the letters there in blocky scrawl makes him feel better, more normal. He doesn't want her to know that he's different from the rest of them.

He doesn't show her, of course not, but some of the other kids find out anyway and on the playground one of the bigger boys grabs his wrist, holding too tightly, yelling too loudly. Leo doesn't say anything, doesn't do anything; he's learned not to when things like this happen, either at school or at home. The boy shows his wrist to the circle of spectators that have gathered around to see a fight -or a beating, whenever Leo Fitz is concerned- and Penelope is there and Leo can't look at her. When the boy decides that he's had enough or that he's bored because Leo is just hanging there, his feet a little ways off the ground, his arm stretched overhead, he throws him to the ground and bloodies his nose for good measure.

Leo washes the blood off his face and the letters off his wrist and when his ma asks him what happened that afternoon he pretends not to know what she's talking about. "Fighting again," his ma says with a click of her tongue.

His father only laughs. "It's not a fight if it's just an ass beating." He grabs Leo as he passes by, his fingers around the back of his neck. "You fight back, boy?"

Leo says nothing, an answer in itself. His father reaches for his wrist, the evidence of what he'd done not entirely gone despite his scrubbing. He only looks disgusted, shoving Leo away from him.

Leo is nearly ten when he hears his father say what they've all been thinking. "He doesn't have a Soul Mark," Alistair growls at the table, his meal uneaten but his drink -the fourth- gone. Leo sits there, unnoticed, as usual. "Proof he's just a freak."

His ma slams her hand down and the plates rattle. "Alistair!"

His father only laughs, the way he does whenever he riles her up enough for a reaction. "No one will want someone like him," he says. "The proof is right there."

Leo hides his hands beneath the table but it doesn't change the truth of his father's words.

Not long after, his father goes out and never comes back and no one in the house mentions his bare wrists again.

* * *

 

He goes to the Academy and it feels like a relief, finding this place where he fits in, where he's like the others around him. Smart, creative, strange and too eager about the things in books and the materials spread out on a table before him. Of course, Fitz notices the difference between them, how they all have names on their wrists, that certainty that one day they'll find the person out there for them.

At the Academy, he sees it happen, those first meetings, awkward realizations, fumbling invitations for coffee or dinner. He takes to wearing longer sleeves, the cuffs buttoned securely, hiding the absence of a name from his wrist.

It takes him a while to make friends, despite this feeling of inclusion and understanding. His first friend finally comes in the form of a girl he'd found insufferable before, one who was pretty but talked too much and seemed, rightfully, to believe that she knew everything. They work together, not by choice, and Fitz discusses that she's not so terrible after all, though she does still have an insufferable moment or two in her.

He never asks about Soul Marks because he learned that the question, curious and acceptable in their world, only leads to someone asking him in return. But he sees her wrist one afternoon when they're working together in companionable silence and he can't take his eyes away from the name there. It's only in that moment that he realizes he'd hoped that her wrists would be blank too, that maybe they'd found each other despite the Universe's overlooking them.

But she has a name, Daisy, and she's absently doodled a flower above it, the pen mark slowly fading. She notices him looking and he only hope that his disappointment isn't obvious, that she can't pick up on the shame he feels.

"Oh, I was bored in Dr. Hall's class the other day," Jemma says self-consciously, rubbing her thumb along the drawing. "Have you…met yours yet?"

Their friendship is still new enough that they haven't crossed this boundary yet: Soul Mates and dating and love.

Fitz only shakes his head, looking down at their open textbook.

Jemma doesn't ask and he feels a pang of something like love in his stomach because of it.

* * *

 

They officially join SHIELD, become agents, stay in the lab, until the morning Jemma comes in, a whirlwind, talking about an offer and the opportunity to go into the field and see the world and learn more than they ever could here. He likes where they are, the lab and how clean and orderly it is but he's learned now that there's more than one kind of Soul Mate and so he agrees.

Nothing about being in the field is clean or orderly but it is exciting, he supposes, which can be a decent trade off.

Their first mission doesn't end in death or too much bloodshed so Fitz considers it a win and they pick up another stray, someone almost like him and Jemma who clearly doesn't fit anywhere else. Her name is Skye and she has Jemma's name on her wrist and Agent May loses patience with their confused chatter and the ensuing drama pretty quickly. Fitz feels that pang, familiar now, in his chest as he watches them try to figure each other out. He can see in Jemma, that thrill of excitement hidden beneath her wary confusion and he wonders if anyone will ever look at him like that. If anyone will ever learn his name, realize that it doesn't match the one on their wrist but wonder about him anyway. If they will get to know him and decide that maybe he's worth the mismatch, that they could be happy with him anyway.

At the bottom of the ocean, Fitz decides all of this has been for a reason, that his father was wrong about his wrists being bare because he was only a freak. They were bare so that he could do the right thing, so that he could save Jemma and ensure that she gets back to Skye or Daisy or whoever the hell is out there for her.

In the end, he supposes, they save each other and he feels a twinge of disappointment because his blank wrists have gone back to meaning nothing at all.

* * *

 

Sometimes, Fitz misses the lab, the orderly, organized, clean and safe walls that weren't always exciting but never came with constant threats of death. He's learned that the only feeling worse than that pang, the one he'd felt every time he realized there would never be a person for him, someone to look at him the way Jemma looks at Daisy, is the fear that someone he loves is about to die. The lab never came with that sensation.

He doesn't quite get used to it.

As a little boy, he'd been so certain that a Soul Mark meant a happily ever after. Despite the fact that the name on his mother's wrist belonged to a dead man. Despite the proof he'd seen to the contrary. He'd wanted to believe, it had been the fairy tale he'd told himself growing up, the promise that one morning a name would appear on his wrist and with it would follow nothing but happy, blissful moments.

He'd never thought, then, that a Soul Mark didn't guarantee a smooth ride, a happy ending. He's seen May's face and Dr. Garner's; how Daisy loses Jemma and then Jemma loses Daisy; how Coulson seems to fit nowhere at all, uncertain despite the fact that his wrists aren't bare. Not like Fitz's. By this point, he doesn't expect that to change, doesn't _want_ it to change, doesn't want to deal with those implications. These people, these friends of his, they can be enough.

It's a welcome distraction, mostly, when Holden Radcliffe joins the team, unofficially, as he likes to assure them. He seems to take to Fitz instantly and Fitz to him in turn. He has dozens of ideas, endless ways of looking at something, project after project he wants to start on, that he wants Fitz to help him with.

The name on his wrist says Agnes but he never talks about her and Fitz never asks. He's noticed Radcliffe studying the name, rubbing it with his thumb, as though to trace it or possibly erase it. Fitz's belief in the automatic happy ending is long gone by this point.

Radcliffe makes a person. No, Fitz knows that's not right. He makes an android, a human stand-in, curious and charming and dutiful.

He can't help but like her. The rest of the team doesn't feel the same; they distrust Radcliffe and his motives and he doesn't blame them. Aida feels separate from that somehow, autonomous, though he understands that's not how it works.

He's at Radcliffe's, puzzling over a program Mace has requested, when she steps into the office, like a cat, always on silent feet. "Agent Fitz." He startles when she says his name and she only smiles at him, that strange sort of gesture that seems to be made of equal parts sincerity and confusion. "I thought you might like some tea."

Aida sets the mug down beside his arm and he reaches for it instinctively. "Thank you." His eyes, like they always do, move toward the sliver of skin, the subtle reminder that this is all he will ever have.

"You're welcome." She's been practicing human gestures, putting herself through Radcliffe's ordained paces. She reaches out, putting her hand over his rest, a human enough gesture, Fitz assumes.

Briefly, her thumb rests against his bare wrist. She doesn't say anything about it, doesn't realize that it should be different. He's grateful.

* * *

 

In the Framework, the idea of Soul Mates and Marks is gone, eliminated, erased from the code.

The Doctor doesn't know any differently, doesn't know he should be relieved by this change.

* * *

 

He remembers things slowly, his thoughts and understanding clouded by the strange way his body feels. It's like having your foot fall asleep and then having the pins-and-needles tingling spread throughout your entire body. He's in the penthouse, no the base, no the office, no the…where he is doesn't seem as important as who he is.

Fitz isn't sure, honestly.

He sits up, slowly, cautiously. He's dressed like himself, clothes rumpled but he reaches up automatically to smooth down his hair, a tic he'd never had before. And then he notices his wrist, no longer bare.

The name there, the skin still slightly raised and red like he'd just gotten a new tattoo. Ophelia.

Fitz looks over, finds he's not alone. She's there too, Aida, no Madame Hydra, no Ophelia. Ophelia. She's on the floor, discarded by whoever moved them into the containment pod; they'd taken care to put him onto the bench seat but she's sprawled out, doll-like, her hair hiding her features.

A sharp intake of breath, a momentary flutter of excitement, hidden away quickly by a surge of shock, fear, guilt. Fitz quickly pulls his sleeve down, covering his wrist; this gesture is more familiar to him, second-nature to the man he is here.

When she comes awake, Fitz can't look at her, doesn't dare. He doesn't want to check, doesn't want to see her wrists, her skin in her newly human body. She sits there on the floor of the pod like it hasn't occurred to her to move and Fitz can hear the rustle of her clothes, the constant sound of her moving around.

He peeks at her, curious, entranced. She lets her hair fall from her hands, studying him instead. "I'm sorry," she says and her voice is the same, that curious lilting like she's studying and cataloguing every syllable. "I only did it for us."

"For us," Fitz repeats, a statement and a question in one. He remembers, of course, how things had been in the other world. How he had been in the other world: a monster with this woman beside him. Hades and Persephone. Something stirs in his chest.

And then he can't help himself: he looks. It reminds him of the moment in the Academy, when he'd cast a furtive glance of Jemma's wrist and hoped to find a sign that she was meant for him. He sees that now, Ophelia's new, smooth skin is blemished with seven letters. His own. Leopold.

In that other world, and this one, she was the only one to ever call him that.

Ophelia notices his eyes on her and he's sure to her, his expression is unreadable. It's fitting, seeing as he can't understand how he's feeling either.

She sees the name and her brow knits, her features suddenly so expressive. She touches it and he imagines he can feel it. "Strange." She puts her arm down, looks at him, entreating. "I don't understand."

Fitz doesn't either. But he does, he suddenly does. "Ophelia," this name is second nature to him, the only one that makes sense and not just because it's on his skin. "You're human now."

Ophelia nods and her expression doesn't change. "Yes, it seemed as though the procedure worked as planned." She presses her palms and bare feet to the containment module floor, curling her toes. "It worked," quieter now, more wondrous.

Her smile is dazzling and it's the moment, Fitz thinks, that he'll later pinpoint as the moment he fell in love with her.

Her eyes are bright, her smile wide and she springs to her feet. "It worked," she says again, her tone full of wonder. "I'm human. I am human."

Fitz can only watch as she paces the small space of the pod, seemingly unawares that they're prisoners here in this tiny box. She seems only interested in running her hands across the walls, the window, touching her clothes, her hair, pressing her face and forehead to her own hands. Touching. Feeling. The distraction is enough for her but Fitz feels like he can't truly focus on anything aside from the name burning against his wrist.

Finally she comes to him, sitting down beside him, reverent. Their knees press together and she jumps away, startled. He reaches out to steady her, a hand on her knee that results in another flinch. "I'm sorry," he says quickly, holding up his hands. "I didn't-"

"I can feel it," Ophelia says and she smiles. "When you touch me."

Fitz reaches for her, this time letting his fingers touch her wrist. His name there. His name. Ophelia looks and the confusion is back. He tries to tell her, tries to do his best to make sense despite the storm in his mind, the way his thoughts won't settle down or stop. It seems strangely irrelevant to be telling her now, here, about Soul Mates given the circumstances. At the same time, it seems to matter more than anything.

Ophelia listens, curious and confused and when he shows her his own wrist, she reaches out her fingers instinctively. "I didn't have one," he says, "because there was no you before right now."

He's filled with the strange urge to call his ma, to tell her she was right after all, that he only had to wait for his Soul Mate to be born. Though, he figures this isn't what she'd meant exactly.

Ophelia looks at her own wrist and nods. "I chose you," she says as if it's the simple. "Of course." To her, it seems it is. She looks at him, uncertain. "And you choose me?"

Fitz smiles; he doesn't mean to but he laughs, a quick burst. "Yeah," he says. "I guess that's what it means."

* * *

 

The proof that she's newly human, truly and sincerely and that she belongs to someone, complicates how the team feels about things. Fitz can see it in their faces, their wariness, their angry exhaustion and he wonders what Ophelia thinks and understands as she looks at these people, if she understands what hatred and distrust looks like. Jemma and Daisy do their best to act as mediators, the only ones largely unburdened by the Framework; the ones who don't have a lifetime of memories, experiences and actions to reconcile. Radcliffe is gone, Mace is dead. It seems the only one left to answer for the Framework is Ophelia and, Fitz thinks, himself. Hades and Persephone reunited.

Staying doesn't seem like an option. To stay would be to give her up and Fitz doesn't think he can, not so soon after he's found her. "She's human now, things are different," he says to Coulson and he can hear the resignation in his tone, like he's already accepted this lost cause.

Coulson looks at Ophelia but his expression doesn't change. "That doesn't change anything."

These people, his family, his original idea of Soul Mates, let them go. Ophelia doesn't seem to understand how close she'd nearly come to losing her chance to be human.

They leave, the base in ruins behind them, the night sky stretching out wide above them. Ophelia gasps, tipping her head back and her breath plumes out in front of her. "Oh," she says, the first soft thing to come out of her mouth, excitement previously making her loud and exuberant. Fitz thinks maybe this is the moment he falls in love with her; or maybe it'll be a moment yet to come.

There's so much to see, to feel, to smell and hear and by the time they reach the train station and Fitz buys their tickets, she's quiet and her hands shake when he reaches out to hold them. "You'll adjust," he promises her and it's easy to turn his head, to put his face close to her own, to whisper through the curtain of her hair. "It's a lot right now."

Fitz can see people watching them, curious and concerned faces and he puts an arm around her waist. Ophelia doesn't flinch this time, moving to his side. She fits perfectly against the curve of him and his eyes are once again pulled to his wrist, to the name there, the proof. It's an entirely new feeling to belong to someone, to see the people around them with their own Soul Mates and know that, in a small way, he's like them.

On the train, Ophelia starts to drift off to sleep, only to snap herself awake again each time, looking both surprised and annoyed. Fitz can't help but smile and moving to touch her, even a faint touch, is starting to become second nature. "It's okay," he assures her. "You can sleep. You need to."

"I don't want to miss anything," Ophelia protests, looking out the window of the train car at the world that passes steadily on. The houses and buildings bathed in orange artificial light, the long expanses of space that are nothing but darkness.

Fitz smiles, pulls her to the seat beside him. "It'll all still be here when you wake up," he assures her.

She sleeps, slumped against him, her hand loose around his wrist. Later, when he falls asleep too, the last thing he's aware of is the absent way her thumb moves against the letters on his skin.


End file.
